Benny and Jorge and the quest for peace in Little Village

Benny Estrada and Jorge Roque, known around Little Village by their first names, came of age in the late 1980s and early '90s. They were both involved in gangs — Benny was a Latin King, Jorge a Gangster Two-Six. For the past 20 years, they've been mentoring youth in the neighborhood. Read story (E. Jason Wambgsans / Chicago Tribune)

Benny Estrada and Jorge Roque, known around Little Village by their first names, came of age in the late 1980s and early '90s. They were both involved in gangs — Benny was a Latin King, Jorge a Gangster Two-Six. For the past 20 years, they've been mentoring youth in the neighborhood. Read story (E. Jason Wambgsans / Chicago Tribune)

Let’s walk together, say two former gang members as they work the streets, coaxing calm from conflict

Late one Wednesday night last fall, as he was lying on his couch, Jorge Roque answered his cellphone and heard an anguished voice say something he had hoped he'd never hear.

Gio had been shot.

Roque hopped into his car, then sped up Ogden Avenue toward Mount Sinai Hospital, a trip he had made countless times, never imagining he'd be making it for Gio.

Of the many young men Roque had shepherded through the hazards of Chicago's Little Village neighborhood, Giovanni Garcia had seemed one of the most likely to make it safely through. Skinny, shy, affable Gio. A teenager who was fond of pizza and PlayStation, who liked to party but came to Bible study, who took care of his brother's son after his brother was beaten with bottles by a mob.

Gio was a kid who gave Roque hope, and racing toward the hospital, he kept hoping.

Outside Mount Sinai on that chilly night, he waited. Finally, Gio's mother stepped out of the emergency room.

She shook her head.

Se lo llevaron a Gio. They took Gio from me.

In his two decades of trying to quell the violence of Little Village, Roque had seen many mothers weep for their dead sons, held them while they sobbed, murmured consolation. He did it once more that night, and he sobbed too.

He was 40 years old, and he was tired, but he stayed until there was no more he could do.

The next morning, Roque's phone rang again. This time it was Benjamin Estrada. If anyone understood how he felt at that moment, it was Benny.

Neither of the men knew all the details of what had happened to Gio, but it was safe to say that his shooting — on the west side of Little Village — had something to do with the long gang war that has fractured the neighborhood for generations.

What can I do for you? Benny asked.

In that moment, Benny had no way of knowing that less than a week later — on the neighborhood's east side — he, too, would lose a young man he'd been mentoring, and that his friend Jorge would be asking him the same question.

It's the question both men have spent their adult lives asking each other and the families of Little Village, and year after year, they've been there offering to help.

They're there at probation hearings and peace circles, at hospitals and funerals, coaxing dropouts back to school, tending to women who have lost a husband and children who have lost a father.

Wherever they go, they come to guide but not to judge, to be present but not to preach.

They don't do their work alone. They're quick to say so. They're wary of publicity and praise. But they allowed the Tribune to follow them for several months, before and after Gio's death, and their work provides a glimpse into the violence that afflicts not only their Chicago neighborhood, but also many others.

Benny and Jorge. Jorge and Benny.

Through even the darkest times, they keep each other going, these two men who were once trained to hate each other.

Former gang members Benny and Jorge work to keep the peace in Little Village, a Chicago neighborhood torn by a decadeslong conflict.

East side, west side

Little Village is beautiful.

When Benny and Jorge think of the neighborhood, the word "beautiful" comes to mind.

They think of 26th Street thronged on summer days with shoppers who travel from all over the Midwest in search of cowboy boots and quinceanera dresses. They think of food and music, faith and family, the energy of the young people, the vibrancy of Mexico transported north to Chicago.

But an undercurrent of violence rides through La Villita.

Since the 1960s, this 4-1/2-square-mile pocket of the city, populated by 79,000 people, mostly Hispanic, has been gripped by a gang war, one sustained not by drugs but by a violent cycle in which one killing incites the next. Its origins are obscure even to the rivals who, one generation after another, keep the deadly fight going with bricks, bats, bottles, pipes, guns, knives, graffiti and Facebook taunts.

The border between the warring sides, which today is roughly Ridgeway Avenue, shifts slightly, but the war remains the same.

Gangster Two-Six to the west, Latin Kings to the east.

Each side has its own high school, its own Catholic church, its own McDonald's and La Chiquita grocery store. Each gang has its own rules, and kids learn them early, just as they learn to hate the kids on the other side for no clear reason. Hundreds have died in the long conflict, thousands have been wounded. By the time they're 18, the young men who survive can list the funerals they've attended and the friends they've lost.

Asi son las cosas. That's just how it is.

Benny and Jorge, as they're known around the neighborhood, came of age in the late 1980s and early '90s, Benny as a Latin King, Jorge as a Two-Six. Little Village was more violent then.

"Like the Wild, Wild West, man," says Jorge, who pronounces his name "George."

At Farragut High School on the east side, Benny, whose father died when he was a baby, started hanging out with the "party crews." He coveted what the older guys — the Latin Kings — had. Money, fancy cars, pretty girls. Respect.

"It's like, man, you start seeing that, like OK, all right, how can I be like that?" Benny says.

Benny was 16 when, in the lexicon of the gangs, he "turned." He left high school after four years with no diploma and wound up, in his words, "standing in front of my house, making money."

During his gangbanging years, he spent a couple of months in county jail for selling cannabis, but he escaped the worst violence. Not all his friends did. Every time one of them was hurt, he felt his hatred harden a little more for the guys on the other side.

In the same era, a mile and a half west, on the other side of Ridgeway, Jorge was one of those guys.

He was still in grade school when a neighbor he admired introduced him to the "lifestyle."

"That partying lifestyle," he says, "that gangbanging lifestyle, that, you know, the cars you can have, the money you can make on the streets, the easy lifestyle, man."

Jorge had been raised to believe in hard work, not the easy life. His father grew up on the streets of Juarez, Mexico, and after several years in Chicago had earned enough money as a roofer and construction worker to buy his family a house in Little Village, west side.

But his hardworking father was also violent and alcoholic, and, though his mother tried to keep him away from gangs, Jorge yearned for a sense of acceptance and connection he didn't find at home.

In the summer after eighth grade, he endured the gang's initiation ritual — a beating by a couple of friends — and turned Two-Six.

Looking back, he has a name for the gang's most powerful seduction.

"False love," he says. "Because that's what it is. The gang gives you false love."

E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune

Little Village, a 4-1/2-square-mile pocket of Chicago that's home to 79,000 people, has been gripped by a gang war since the 1960s.

Little Village, a 4-1/2-square-mile pocket of Chicago that's home to 79,000 people, has been gripped by a gang war since the 1960s.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

Clifford, the big, red van

"Who's this guy?" Jorge thought warily the night he met Benny.

He remembered hearing some things about Benny, maybe once even chased him in a car with some buddies.

They met officially in 1995, at a meeting hosted by the University of Chicago, which was doing research on Little Village violence. Benny and Jorge were hired to hand out surveys to gang members. By then, they'd each found their way out of the gang, mostly.

Benny had a revelation about the need to leave one night when he'd been sitting on his back porch smoking weed. Stoned, he got up and wandered to the corner.

He was "snoozing" — caught not paying attention — when from a car someone shouted, "Yo!" He turned and the shooting started. The bullets missed him but made him realize how quickly he could lose everything he loved. His life. His baby daughter.

"I need a break," he told the guys.

Jorge's revelation came as an ultimatum. His girlfriend, who eventually became his wife, decreed: Leave the gang, or I'm gone.

At the U. of C. meeting, Benny and Jorge struck up a conversation, but it was several years later, when they were both working at the YMCA, that they cemented their identity as a team.

Provided by Benny Estrada

Benny Estrada and Jorge Roque, both not pictured, solidified their relationship with the youths of Little Village driving neighborhood streets in this big, red van they called "Clifford."

Benny Estrada and Jorge Roque, both not pictured, solidified their relationship with the youths of Little Village driving neighborhood streets in this big, red van they called "Clifford."

(Provided by Benny Estrada)

The Y owned a big, red van they called "Clifford," after the big, red cartoon dog, and in it they cruised through the crowded blocks of Little Village and Pilsen, past the old brick two-flats and bungalows, looking for guys who might want to hop in and go somewhere different. A movie, the beach, to play basketball, to eat.

"Whatchyous doin' out here?" Benny, cracking the window a little, might call to guys standing near a gangway or on a corner. "You know this is my block!"

Then he'd roll down the window and grin, and maybe one or two of the guys would hop in. Some days, the van was so packed it was a miracle the shocks survived.

"There go Benny and Jorge," guys would say as they rolled past, and to the young men who would listen, who sensed there was a better way to live, their pitch could be summed up in a few words:

Let's walk together.

Pastor Vic — east side

The pastor came early to the vigil, to sweep the alley and pick up trash. Cleanliness would encourage respect.

"That's Pastor Vic?" Jorge marveled the first time he saw Victor Rodriguez.

"That's Pastor Vic," Benny said.

Pastor Vic didn't fit the cliche of a cleric. He was a hefty man with a black goatee that matched his slicked-back hair. On summer days, he favored a White Sox jersey. His dark eyes were intense, and his temper, by his own admission, was short.

The pastor's church, La Villita, was as unconventional as he was. The odor of sweat, from the downstairs boxing gym and the upstairs basketball court, often wafted through the creaky, brick building. Once a month, the first-floor nursery doubled as a tattoo removal room.

More than any other person, Pastor Vic has influenced the way Benny and Jorge work with young people.

Don't shove the Bible at them. Just be there. Show them you love them. Walk with them.

Today's vigil, a while before Gio died, was on the east side, for a Latin King named Anthony who had been stabbed to death. In the late afternoon light, young men were filtering into the alley when Benny — stocky, muscular, middle-aged, his head shaved — stepped out of his truck. He's well known on the east side, and he made the rounds, hugging.

By now, the guys on the east side know Jorge too, and he was welcome, but he stood in the back, arms crossed over his broad chest, watching through mirrored sunglasses. He and Benny work hard to show that they care equally about all the kids, and it's important to their message that they be seen together, east and west. Even so, there are times when stepping back is an act of respect.

While candles flickered on the pavement, the neighborhood women gathered behind Pastor Vic, and in front of him, the young men. Most of the Latin Kings in the group hadn't worn their gang colors — black and gold — but a few tilted their caps to the left. Two-Sixes tilt right.

Pastor Vic's solace that afternoon came with a dose of reprimand.

"This is community, guys, you are not a community unto yourself, you're part of us."

His voice fused with the drone of airplanes, the wail of sirens, passing cars and barking dogs.

"You know where I'm at, you know where Benny's at, you know where Jorge is at, you know where Father Tom is at. There's people around you that want to come alongside and help. We want to hold you accountable as well. We love you."

Victor Rodriguez, known as Pastor Vic from La Villita Community Church, talks about how mentors like Benny Estrada and Jorge Roque can successfully work with young men in the neighorhood. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

Victor Rodriguez, known as Pastor Vic from La Villita Community Church, talks about how mentors like Benny Estrada and Jorge Roque can successfully work with young men in the neighorhood. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

Vigils in Little Village — as distinct from funerals and wakes — generally honor someone who has died violently, and they can turn violent. In fact, an earlier vigil for the same man, on the night he died, ended with mourners hurling bottles at squad cars. Now, the police who had circled the alley before the service sat quietly around the corners and up the blocks.

The guys had their own security. They stashed guns in wheel wells or mailboxes, out of sight but nearby, ready for use if a lookout whistled down the block to signal the approach of an unfamiliar face or car.

"Hey …" Pastor Vic continued.

"Peace is a dirty business. Peace takes work. … Peace means that you forgive. Peace means that you give up the right to revenge."

Many of the young men stood in silence, staring, no hint of what they felt.

In the crowd stood a man older than most, in his 30s, with the tattoo of a teardrop under his left eye. His shirt bore the name, in Latin King black-and-gold, of a King killed nearby earlier in the summer.

He was a well-known gang member, and his arrival at the vigil was greeted like a star's. He had hugged Benny, and Jorge, too, a signal to the east side kids that Jorge was OK. When Pastor Vic asked for donations for the dead man's family, the man with the tattooed teardrop took off his hat and passed it around.

When the vigil was over, Pastor Vic asked the guys to take the candles so no one could come by and disrespect the memorial.

By the time the crowd broke up, daylight was fading. Benny stopped several of the kids. Vigils and funerals are a good place to connect with gang members.

He gave his phone number to one young man and urged him to call.

"Hey," he shouted to another, who had recently turned Latin King. "Where you going?"

Fernando Garcia was shot in both legs in Little Village in 2016. He struggles to sleep at night because of a nightmare he keeps having over his shooting. He decided to start sleeping in the afternoon at the Urban Life Skills office or in the van.

Fernando Garcia was shot in both legs in Little Village in 2016. He struggles to sleep at night because of a nightmare he keeps having over his shooting. He decided to start sleeping in the afternoon at the Urban Life Skills office or in the van.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

Fernando — west side

Fernando Garcia was shot in both legs at 3:30 one morning last summer near the brown-brick Little Village two-flat where he used to live.

His family had moved away a year earlier — his mother wanted him out of the neighborhood — but he came back to hang with his friends.

As he lay bleeding on the sidewalk, his first call was to Jorge.

Fernando had come to think of Jorge as a father. In the spring, Jorge had taken him and some other neighborhood kids, including his friend Gio Garcia, to Mexico. From Jorge, he had been learning how to read.

Before the ambulance arrived, in the blackness of that August night, Jorge prayed with him by phone and, afterward, at the hospital, Jorge urged him to think about forgiving his shooter. It was Jorge who took him home.

A couple of weeks after the shooting, Fernando limped into the west side office of Urban Life Skills, a gang intervention program affiliated with New Life Community Church that employs Jorge and Benny.

A quiet, heavyset 19-year-old who keeps his cap pulled low over his eyes and his hoodie cinched tight, he was leaning on a pink floral print walker that belongs to the grandmother of one of the mentors. It's on long-term loan to guys who have been shot.

He cursed and muttered to himself as he scraped the pink walker across the floor.

Urban Life Skills works with young people who, like Fernando, are on juvenile probation, as well as some who aren't, helping them, among other things, finish school, find jobs, kick drugs. Most range in age from 15 to 20. Jorge and Benny call them all los chavos, the kids.

While Jorge cooked cheeseburgers in the kitchen, Fernando sat down with several others in the high-ceilinged, white-walled room. It was furnished on the cheap, with a pool table, Ikea bookshelves and a TV for playing PlayStation and watching YouTube.

The substance abuse program was in session.

E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune

Jorge Roque visits the home of a young man in October 2016 who is on house arrest. Home visits are a way for Jorge to follow the progress of youths he mentors.

Jorge Roque visits the home of a young man in October 2016 who is on house arrest. Home visits are a way for Jorge to follow the progress of youths he mentors.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

Fernando was barely into his teens when he became addicted to the powerful drug PCP. Both gangs have a ban on PCP, on the grounds that it makes a user do stupid things, and on the strict east side, a Latin King caught smoking it may be beaten as punishment. On the west side, despite a ban, PCP use is common. Fernando had kicked the drug, but he still struggled with K2, a synthetic marijuana that eased his anxiety since the shooting.

The young men at the table took turns trading tales of their summer.

One said smoking weed helped him cope with the deaths of friends.

Another talked about a friend who was killed shortly after being released from juvenile detention.

Fernando mentioned that his wounded legs made it hard to climb stairs. He said he still went to Bible study but the shooting left him bitter.

"This is what I get?" he said. He had struggled to get one of his legs, which still carried a bullet, propped on a chair.

When Fernando was growing up, he didn't aspire to join a gang.

"I wanted to lock all these m------------ up," he says. "I wanted to be a cop, bro."

A friend pressured him to join. The friend is now dead. Pastor Vic presided over that vigil too.

"Hell, yeah, bro, it's the worst thing you can do in your life, join a gang," Fernando says. "A lot of gangbangers say it's a lot of positive, but it's a lot of negative, bro. You're just a number. They don't give a f--- about you. They say they love you. When you're alive, they don't even tell you they love you, bro. When you're dead, they put on Facebook, 'Oh RIP my n----- this and that.' They don't give a f--- about you, bro."

In certain moods, Fernando sees his shooting as a second chance.

One day, home from the hospital, as his mother changed his bandages, he began to cry, ashamed of how badly he'd treated her.

"I don't deserve a mom like you," he remembers telling her.

"You're my son," she told him, "and I love you anyway."

Lately, his mentors have talked to him about leaving the gang — "detaching" is the term — but getting out isn't as simple as walking away. It requires being beaten up. He might be willing to submit to the pummeling, but he hesitates for other reasons.

"I lost too many guys to leave," he says. "If I drop my flags, bro, the guys from the other side are still gonna wanna kill me, bro. 'Cause, they're still gonna think you're a Two-Six, you're a Two-Six, when you're really not."

Jorge understands that leaving the gang is complicated. He spent his own time with "one foot in, one foot out." Persuading Fernando to give up certain behaviors, like hanging out on the street — "to stand on the sidelines even though he's still on the team" — would be a start.

"Fernando is a young man who's capable of doing many big things in his life," he says. "And he's tried, I give it to him, he's tried."

Jorge's faith buoys Fernando but doesn't always beat temptation. Several weeks after he was shot, Fernando was in an anger management class run by the probation department when a Snapchat video popped into his phone.

It showed an east side guy behind Fernando's old west side home, flaunting a gun.

He left class early, on his wounded legs, to check it out, even knowing that if trouble erupted he wouldn't be able to run.

E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune

Benny Estrada makes the rounds in a passenger van to check up on and pick up youths for activities in December 2016.

Benny Estrada makes the rounds in a passenger van to check up on and pick up youths for activities in December 2016.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

Small victories — east side

In Little Village, young people are classified by their relationship to the gang.

Wannabes. Soldiers. Leaders.

By far the largest category is neutron. A neutron, sometimes called a nothing or a nobody, isn't in a gang, and it's for that kind of kid that Benny was summoned to Farragut High School on the east side one afternoon.

The dean of discipline had called to say she had a situation. She'd heard that a couple of Latin Kings were planning to jump a student who disrespected them at lunch.

Could Benny come defuse the problem?

Back in the early '90s, when Benny was in school, Farragut was once shut down because of a daylong brawl involving four gangs and hundreds of students. His challenge today was smaller, but he knew how easily slights and rumors can explode among young men who wake up every day on the defensive.

In a white van, he cruised past the old three-story, brick school, occasionally calling out, "Flag football tonight! 5:30!" He's always recruiting kids for sports; if they're out playing ball, they're not making trouble.

Benny was familiar with the three students he was looking for, and the neutron, he knew, was a kid who liked to joke around. Joking can be construed as disrespect.

Eventually, he spotted one of the Latin Kings, who was dressed in the school uniform of khaki pants and royal-blue shirt, and summoned him to the van window.

What's up? Benny asked.

E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune

Players scramble during a flag football game at La Villita Park in the shadows near Cook County Jail on the east side of Little Village in October 2016.

Players scramble during a flag football game at La Villita Park in the shadows near Cook County Jail on the east side of Little Village in October 2016.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

The King said there had been an argument in the lunch line. He hadn't seen it, didn't think it was serious — but the neutron needed to know his place. And, if anything, it would be a one-on-one fight.

Benny knew better. In the neighborhood, there was no such thing as a one-on-one fight.

"If you're a neutron and it's a bunch of Kings around, what're you gonna think?" Benny said to the King. Piensalo. Think about it.

The kid nodded, but he had a question: Did the neutron snitch? Snitching would have been worse than the initial slight.

When Benny spotted the other King, he called him over, grabbed him by the collar and shook. They both laughed, but Benny was serious. He dropped his voice.

"I find out about everything that goes on in the neighborhood," he said.

With a laugh, he let the kid go, and the two guys walked off.

Benny was still waiting for the neutron to walk out the school doors when he spotted another Latin King.

"Flag football tonight!" he called.

The King hopped in the van, then, learning why Benny was there, hopped out and caught up with his friends. He came back and told Benny not to worry. It was handled.

Benny drove around a while longer, looking for the neutron and finally saw him, walking with his girlfriend.

Jump in, Benny said. The boy noticed the Latin King in the back seat and hesitated.

You'll be fine, Benny assured him, and the boy got in.

Both the neutron and the King went to football that night.

No news, no applause, just the kind of small victory that is a big part of the work.

E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune

Jorge Roque jokes with a young man mentored by Benny Estrada in between games at the Crosstown Classic softball tournament in September 2016. The tournament brings together players from the east and west sides of Little Village.

Jorge Roque jokes with a young man mentored by Benny Estrada in between games at the Crosstown Classic softball tournament in September 2016. The tournament brings together players from the east and west sides of Little Village.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

Playing for peace

"So," Benny said to the young men gathered around the pitcher's mound, "there's a ton of reasons we do softball in the neighborhood, man, but the main reason, the main reason we do softball is for this."

In the warm sun of early autumn, on the neutral ground of a park a few miles from Little Village, young men from the east and west sides stood together.

"It's to get everybody together from the neighborhood," Benny went on, "get a chance to meet somebody else, get a chance to make a friend. We've been doing this for …"

He glanced at Jorge, who stood a few paces to his right, nodding, while cars buzzed past on the Eisenhower Expressway.

"About seven years now, Jorge?"

"Seventh annual Crosstown," Jorge said.

Some of the players wore gang tattoos in conspicuous places — knuckles, necks, wrists, faces — but they all wore the same shirt. On the front, it displayed two old men in sombreros, one labeled Rocko, for Jorge, the other Blanco, for Benny. On the back was inscribed, "Playing for Peace."

"They're shirts I hope you guys take with you and wear in the neighborhood, man," Benny said. "Wear it with pride, all right? Please, man. You guys represent something very big."

As a former gang member who was shot and went to prison, David Alvarez now spends his time as a youth mentor in Little Village — doing things such as taking young men to court, helping them get their GED, or organizing basketball and softball games in the neighborhood. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

As a former gang member who was shot and went to prison, David Alvarez now spends his time as a youth mentor in Little Village — doing things such as taking young men to court, helping them get their GED, or organizing basketball and softball games in the neighborhood. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

For the next few hours, they played. Four games. East vs. West. Meat, beans and rice for a crowd of 200, served by Benny and Jorge.

In Little Village, softball is a peacemaking tool, a radical act in a neighborhood where gang members can be violated — beat up — for associating with gang members from the other side. It became popular back when Benny and Jorge were roaming around in the big, red YMCA van. Benny remembers one day in particular, on the way to a softball game:

"There was like 60 people standing out there, and I'm, like, man, they must've got into a fight or something. What the heck's going on? I get out. I only have two softballs with me in the bag. Bases. That's it. Everyone's like, 'What's up? We gonna play?'"

Before long, they had formed six teams. Next season, eight. Then 10. Then the Crosstown.

When the young men play ball with each other, their posture and expressions change. Kids who are sullen out on the street, smile. Jorge and Benny watch the same transformation when they take kids kayaking or zip-lining or simply out to dinner at a Portillo's in the suburbs. In these safe places, they find camaraderie, even love, outside the brotherhood of the gang.

"Take them out of the element, and they're kids," Jorge said. "You forget that their childhood has been stolen."

Everything Benny and Jorge do is charged with that hope: Give them back a childhood, lead them into productive manhood.

By the end of the day, the east siders had won three out of the four games, but winners and losers alike went home with identical T-shirts inscribed on the back with a verse from the biblical Book of Proverbs:

"When people's lives please the LORD, even their enemies are at peace with them."

E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune

Luis Lopez, foreground, watches from a distance the vigil for his friend Giovanni Garcia on the west side of Little Village in November 2016.

Luis Lopez, foreground, watches from a distance the vigil for his friend Giovanni Garcia on the west side of Little Village in November 2016.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

Goodbye to Gio — west side

On the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 9, a 13-year-old boy was shot on the east side of Little Village.

Twelve hours later, on the west side, Giovanni Garcia double-parked his old SUV in front of his cousin's house. His younger brother was in the back seat. Gio liked ferrying his relatives around.

A black SUV pulled up next to his.

"Y'all about to get lit the f--- up," someone shouted from inside. A window rolled down, and the shooting started.

Half an hour later at Mount Sinai Hospital, 18-year-old Gio, who had been shot in the chest, was declared dead.

There was nothing to suggest Gio was involved in the shooting of the boy on the east side that morning, but his death appeared to be retaliation. This was the cycle of violence in action.

Gio's vigil was held on a cold, dark November afternoon on the street where he was killed. Two damaged cars sat by the curb, one with flat tires and mangled rims. They were the cars Gio crashed into after he stepped on the gas, intending to pursue the shooters and ram their vehicle, only to faint on the steering wheel.

The pavement was still strewn with glass and shards of plastic light covers.

Once again, Pastor Vic led the service.

"Hay un espiritu de muerte en este barrio."

"There is a spirit of death in our neighborhood, and we need to come against it, we need to try."

Jorge, who had raced to the hospital the night Gio was shot, was there that afternoon, fidgeting with his hat. So were Benny and several of the men they work with. One sobbed into his hands. They loved Gio like a little brother.

Provided by David Alvarez

Giovanni Garcia, 18, known as Gio, was killed on the west side of Little Village on Nov. 9, 2016.

Giovanni Garcia, 18, known as Gio, was killed on the west side of Little Village on Nov. 9, 2016.

(Provided by David Alvarez)

Other kids might come to programs only because it was a requirement of their probation, but Gio — friendly, eager Gio, with his Yankees cap and hoodie — came because he wanted to.

"He's the guy that would call you on a Saturday," Paulino Vargas, one of the mentors, said to the circle of mourners. "You'd be with Gio seven days out of the week, if it was up to him."

Gio had male relatives who were Two-Sixes, including an older brother in prison, and he grew up with kids who joined the gang. In the nuanced calibrations of the neighborhood, he was considered less than a Two-Six but more than a neutron, and he knew everybody. Gang members, preppy kids, skateboarders, athletes, his friends from Urban Life Skills. They were all at the vigil. Fernando came, no longer on a walker, but still limping.

Toward the back of the mourners' circle stood a young man named Luis Lopez. He had been parked just up the street on the night his friend Gio was shot and witnessed it from his rearview mirror. Now he stood watching the scene from under his ball cap, Jorge's hand on his shoulder.

Luis remembers his first encounters with gang members, as a little boy playing in the water of open fire hydrants while the gang members hung out nearby. He was 10 when the first of his friends was killed.

"When my first friend passed away, I'm all like, man, I'm'a fall back, I'm not going to do that," he says. "But at the same time, it comes to my head like, what the f---, I'm just gonna walk away when he just died? How's that make me look? Just let him go like that? Hell, no. I'm like, how can I turn my back on this? And it just keeps on going."

Since Gio's death, he has felt more haunted than ever by a question often heard in Little Village:

Who's next?

The question hovered over the vigil as Jorge spoke, his voice hoarse from exhaustion.

"We never know when is the last time that I'll see someone or you're going to see me," he said. "It could happen to any of us. Show love to each other. Show respect to each other. Give each other hugs. Tell each other I love you. Don't be afraid as men to tell people, 'Te quiero, te amo.'"

As the mourners dispersed, Gio's younger brother, whose head had been grazed by a bullet the night Gio died, leaned against one of the smashed cars and cried.

Gio was buried four days later. That afternoon, Jorge went to share a meal with Gio's family, and Benny headed to the east side office of Urban Life Skills. He hadn't been there long when his phone rang.

And soon, just as Jorge had done a few days earlier, he was driving toward Mount Sinai Hospital.

Aaron Perez was next.

E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune

Benny Estrada tries to remain composed at the scene where Aaron Perez, whom Estrada had mentored for years, was killed on the east side of Little Village in November 2016. Hours before, Benny had attended the burial of Giovanni Garcia.

Benny Estrada tries to remain composed at the scene where Aaron Perez, whom Estrada had mentored for years, was killed on the east side of Little Village in November 2016. Hours before, Benny had attended the burial of Giovanni Garcia.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

Aaron — east side

Benny went to the hospital. Then he went to the crime scene.

The following day, he ordered pizza and sat with some of Aaron's friends.

"He wouldn't want you guys to jeopardize your lives or your freedom to seek vengeance," he said. He had tears in his eyes.

The guys sat in silence, elbows on their knees, staring at the floor.

Aaron was 15 when he met Benny. He was on probation, and had been charged with a shooting in Two-Six territory. A year earlier, his older brother, a Latin King, was shot to death on Ridgeway Avenue. Younger boys often follow their brothers into the gang.

At first, Benny found Aaron to be a defiant kid who cursed a lot, but he matured, and as the months passed, he became one of the most reliable guys in the Urban Life Skills program. According to his probation officer, he had a good chance at a probation department scholarship.

Provided by Benny Estrada

Aaron Perez was killed on his 18th birthday on the east side of Little Village in November 2016.

Aaron Perez was killed on his 18th birthday on the east side of Little Village in November 2016.

(Provided by Benny Estrada)

Now he'd been shot dead, walking with a friend in the middle of an afternoon, near a boarded-up firehouse on a street flanked by brown-brick two-flats. It was his 18th birthday. He left behind a baby son.

When Benny visited the spot that day, an officer told him Aaron must have been "snoozing" when the killer walked up and opened fire. The officer also told him Aaron's head wound had still been smoking when police arrived.

It was "messed up," Benny would say later, that the cop was so explicit, but he knows cops see a lot, so he just nodded.

Benny stayed at the scene for a long time, consoling Aaron's friends and family. Aaron's mother had asked him to come, so he did, even though it meant missing report card pickup for his son. It was the least he could do for a mother who had now lost two boys.

Two days later, another vigil. Again, Pastor Vic spoke.

"When is enough enough?" he asked.

It was merely coincidence that Aaron's vigil occurred on the day of the East Side Turkey Bowl, an annual football game in La Villita Park, but the coincidence was serendipitous. Through the years Benny and Jorge have learned that it's important to offer the kids hopeful moments after moments of grief.

"Let's after this, let's go to the park, eat and celebrate his life, bro," Benny said, knowing that for some of the guys it would be their only Thanksgiving meal.

That night, in the new park set next to the hulking buildings of Cook County Jail, as his older brother, a former Latin King, helped fry turkeys, Benny stood on the field, tossing the football to kids who laughed, and he laughed with them.

E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune

Young men gather at the scene where 18-year-old Aaron Perez was killed on the east side of Little Village in November 2016. The young men moved toward the location of the shooting after police cut the crime scene tape.

Young men gather at the scene where 18-year-old Aaron Perez was killed on the east side of Little Village in November 2016. The young men moved toward the location of the shooting after police cut the crime scene tape.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

'Las Mananitas'

Que linda esta la manana

en que vengo a saludarte

How beautiful is this morning

on which I come to greet you

It was a Friday night, on what would have been Gio's 19th birthday, and in the front seat of his van, Jorge was singing quietly with the traditional Mexican birthday song, "Las Mananitas."

It had been a hard few days. Gio's death, then Aaron's. Jorge had planned to go home early for a change. But when the kids heard that, they texted pleas and protests, and so, with a couple of other mentors, he made the rounds of Little Village, picking them up, house by house, then steered the van west, singing.

El dia en que tu naciste,

nacieron todas las flores

On the day you were born

All the flowers were born

These field trips in the van are some of the most vital work Benny and Jorge do. On the road, it's easy to talk and the kids relax more with every mile farther they get from the city.

In the back seat, a few of the kids drew gang signs in the foggy windows but erased them before they were caught. At their destination — a Steak 'n Shake in Downers Grove — they were amused to notice they were the only "Mexicans" there. When one of the kids pronounced Cajun as "Kuhjoon" while ordering Cajun fries, they teased him.

They had a good time, and on the way home traded stories about Gio.

"I'm very grateful," Jorge told them as the van rolled along the dark road. "I'm thankful he just allowed us to walk with him, be part of his life."

E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune

Jorge Roque, back left, and youths from the west side Urban Life Skills program joke around at a fast-food restaurant in Downers Grove in November 2016. Jorge took the young men on a trip out of Little Village to decompress after the burial of their friend Giovanni Garcia.

Jorge Roque, back left, and youths from the west side Urban Life Skills program joke around at a fast-food restaurant in Downers Grove in November 2016. Jorge took the young men on a trip out of Little Village to decompress after the burial of their friend Giovanni Garcia.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

A mission

Jorge's stomach had ached for two days.

That didn't stop him on a morning this winter from setting out for his regular visit to the young men in a suburban substance abuse facility. By the end of the day, he was in a hospital bed, preparing to have his appendix removed.

During his time in the hospital, Benny came to visit, of course. So did Gio's father. The kids from Urban Life Skills brought a handmade poster that said, "Appendix Killer."

Jorge would be back to work soon, but surgery was a reminder of something he and Benny have thought about lately. They need to take better care of themselves. All those late-night tacos have added up.

"Jorge is fat," Benny jokes, "and I got fat with Jorge."

Benny has four kids of his own, Jorge has two. Benny's wife, Elsa, urges him to come home earlier, says it's too dangerous to be out.

Jorge's wife, Alma, who all those years ago told him that if he didn't leave the gang, she'd leave him, doesn't press him to quit this work — it's his calling, she says — but when he's ready to leave, she'll be ready.

E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune

Benny Estrada looks up during a light rain as he coaches flag football at La Villita Park in Little Village in November 2015.

Benny Estrada looks up during a light rain as he coaches flag football at La Villita Park in Little Village in November 2015.

(E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

The successes Benny and Jorge have had come with little fanfare or money, and the rewards may sound small. Not to them.

The reward is the young man with the bipolar disorder who's grateful when Benny brings Pampers for his baby at 10 p.m.

It's Fernando losing weight, trying to stay off PCP and sticking with therapy for his anger and bad dreams.

It's the way the kids open up when Benny and Jorge take them somewhere to show them what life looks like beyond Little Village.

And it's the feeling that they've each found a brother, a brotherhood they've expanded to the younger men they're training to carry on the work.

With Benny, Jorge said, "I don't have to carry nothing by myself, the pain of holding things inside, of not being able to speak to people."

"He loves people at their worst," Benny said of Jorge. "Straight-up man of God."

Some people say gang life isn't as attractive to the young people of Little Village as it used to be. Not as many wear gang colors. Kids today have more opportunities — to get out of the neighborhood, to participate in programs — than Benny and Jorge did, and in good measure because of them.

But the division and danger remain, and as long as they do, Benny and Jorge will keep going.

Pastor Vic calls it their mission.

"The mission is take that hill," he said. "You're running up that hill. It's not comfortable for you. People are shooting at you. People want to kill you, but the thing is that mission. What Benny does, what Jorge does as well, it's a mission."

A version of this article appeared in print on April 30, 2017, in the News section of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "The quest for peace in Little Village - Let's walk together, say 2 ex-gang members as they work the streets, coaxing calm from conflict" —
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